US: Fourteen reputed Chicago mob figures have been charged with murders and other crimes spanning four decades, in what authorities called the most sweeping organised-crime bust in the city's rich gangland history.
"Today the Outfit takes a hit," US Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Patrick Fitzgerald said, referring to the Chicago branch of the la cosa nostra.
Perhaps the most notorious killings covered on indictment on Monday were of brothers Anthony and Michael Spilotro, who were beaten and buried in an Indiana cornfield in 1986, apparently for skimming mob profits in Las Vegas. The double murder was later depicted in the film Casino.
Joey "The Clown" Lombardo (75) and brothers James (63) and Michael (55) Marcello, were among those accused in those killings and 16 other previously unsolved gangland homicides between 1970 and 1986.
Other charges against the 14 included beatings, extortion and illegal gambling dating back to the 1960s. The indictment represented the most sweeping attack on organised crime in Chicago.
"The indictment has charged the most homicides in an organised-crime indictment and is the first indictment to charge the Outfit as a criminal enterprise," Mr Fitzgerald said.
Many of the murder victims were in the Mafia or were set to testify in court cases involving at least two of the six mob "street crews" which formerly operated in Chicago and its suburbs.
Lombardo and Frank "the German" Schweihs, who collected "street taxes" from businesses on Chicago's South Side, had yet to be arrested. The rest were either apprehended or were already in custody. One defendant, Frank Saladino (59), was found dead in a Chicago hotel room, the FBI said.
Two of those charged were former Chicago police officers who were accused of helping mob boss Frank Calabrese snr keep track of his crew from prison.
Besides an overarching racketeering charge, which carries a possible 20-year jail term, various defendants were charged with conducting an illegal gambling business, extortion, tax fraud and obstructing the investigation.
Working through informants' tips and using DNA from previous crime scenes, FBI agents and Chicago police "cold case" squad officers tracked down clues and took DNA samples which led to the indictment, according to previously published reports on the investigation. The reports said there were still hundreds of unsolved gangland killings in Chicago predating Capone's era in the 1920s.